The US election has put climate change back on the political agenda

I should stop laughing at the spectacularly awful human being that is Donald Trump, or at least the version of him that's on Twitter but must, must, surely, be a wrongly verified parody account. Anyway, about 12 hours ago, he tweeted this:

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

You read the paranoid imaginings here first, ladies and gentlemen: yes, global warming is a Communist plot. (An amazing number of people actually believe that, but few of them lay it at the feet of the Chinese.)

It's particularly funny because, for the first time in a while, it feels like climate change is back on the political agenda. Rightly or wrongly, Tropical Storm Sandy brought it to the forefront of people's minds. Allen West, the furiously climate-sceptic Florida Republican, has been voted out; Barack Obama mentioned it in his victory speech, for almost the first time since the start of the campaign. Maybe an Obama presidency with no concern over reelection in four years might be able to shine a light on the issue at last.

Of course, there are complex issues about how to keep the economy growing while trying to green it (an excellent start would be to drop the ludicrous bio-oil subsidies), and generally establishing what the best policy response to a warming world is, be it slowing carbon emissions or mitigating their effects. But at least it looks like the American political class is going to stop pretending it's not an issue.

And God it's going to be hilarious watching Trump going increasingly insane as it happens.